The weird but familiar tone grew louder and more intense. Or maybe it was just my senses gradually becoming aware of its shrillness, having been forced to transcend into consciousness. Although my mobile phone tried its best to make the unenviable task of waking me up sound like music to my ears, it hardly made waking up early on a Monday morning less painful. It had been one of those nights when I had had the weirdest series of unrelated dreams and it took my mind a couple of minutes to separate reality from fantasy. My muscles, having been taxed by long hours of cricket the previous evening protested and resisted any movement beyond to put out the alarm and I was almost compelled to give in to their demands. But then, it was to be another day at the office.
One of the projects that I was working on stood at a crucial stage and the technical challenges facing us had been quite unforeseen. In spite of the umpteen number of road blocks and detours, the solution could have been awaiting our arrival around any curve now. Munching a sandwich, I limped on, constantly looking at my watch, lest I miss the hourly bus. Hardly a dull moment passed during the 25-minute ride, with the constant chatter of my beloved beside me. The bus packed with Indian colleagues on deputation gave a lively “bangalorely” din to the otherwise banal journey. Overhearing some of the amusing narrations of their adventures over the weekend, either in different parts of Europe or in their kitchens, was quite inevitable. In the meanwhile, our bus hit the final stretch up the hill to the picturesque company premises, amidst vineyards, fields, forest and hills, more a setting of a hill resort than a product development centre.
Pushing in the power buttons of both my computers, I initiated our team’s tradition of starting the day with a coffee, a significant catalyst to cordial team spirit in German companies. As expected, the just concluded weekend was the topic of the day at the coffee table. The football loving German colleagues were quite perplexed by the craze of us Indians for the ‘weird’ game called cricket and I promised to teach them how to play it sometime. Further, mountain-bikes, weather, trekking, girlfriends and movies kept us indulged as the clock ticked on, until one of us had to remind the rest what we get paid for!
Back at my desk, last Friday seemed a haze in the distant past, as I tried to recall where I had spent my hours in office, in order to log my effort. The emails told me nothing new. The customer wanted the deliveries to be made day before yesterday, whereas it was practically possible only tomorrow and we would only manage it day after tomorrow. Both projects which I worked on stressed again that theirs was high priority and I agreed with both of them in writing. That meant, I would have to log close to the 10 hour maximum limit on daily working hours again. Having done away with the emails, I opened the necessary programs and documents and dove into the matrix of concepts, software, resources and bugs.
After a couple of paragraphs of documentation, few lines of code, an hour-long customer call and one more coffee break, it was ‘Mahlzeit’ around half past eleven, about the time the early starters’ tummies begin to growl. The hungriest one stood up first and pegged on the others to join. Some joined immediately, while others wanted to type in last words into an email or a last line of code, and eventually stood up after some coaxing from the others. Having gotten used to the earlier german lunch timings, I joined the team for the short stroll towards the canteen, a huge hall capable of seating over 1000 employees at a time. In spite of a good number of choices on the day’s menu, most of the courses were out of my ‘scope’, being beef and pork and I joined the queue at the vegetarian pasta stall. After picking up a serving, I made my usual stop-over at the spices counter to ‘indianize’ the pasta with generous garnishing of red chilli flakes, raw chilli slices and tabasco pepper sauce. After collecting cutlery and exchanging a recorded exchange of standard pleasantries with the lady at the cash counter, I scanned the sea of colleagues until I found a familiar face with hands motioning towards him. Having now learnt the ‘art’ of dining with western cutlery, I enjoyed the wok as much as the talk at the table. Most conversations were quite general, although work-talk cropped up once in a while. Lunch was followed by the routine walk around the campus, enjoying the display of luxury test cars as much as the sunshine and scenery.
Back at business, heavy activity in the tummy drained the blood from my brain and it began to hibernate having been spoiled by the weekend siestas. Another round of caffeine ‘doping’ became quite inevitable to shake off the sleep mode and my German colleagues hardly needed to be coerced. With the clouds of drowsiness cleared, I got down to preparing for the review meeting of the concept I had developed. Although the technical feasibility of my design was in question, the review discussion showed that the political dynamics among different departments involved in the project, the historical reasons for certain project decisions and the geographical distribution of the project team worldwide became equally relevant. Although the discussion made us lose track of time, I had to eventually call it a day due to other plans after work.
Fitness training and learning to drive on the ‘wrong’ side of the road drained out my remaining energy and I was quite relieved when I landed on my bed at the end of it all. It felt great to be alive, after riding the roller coaster once again. There was a feeling of satisfaction and peace, in spite of the fatigue. That’s about all I remember of that night, till sometime later, I heard that dreaded tone again.
